The ways in which environmental change has impacted and will further impact water in Africa are far too great to be contained within this blog and there are countless other examples I could have included. Environmental change is not going anywhere. The pressure and legislation simply isn’t there to prevent us from exceeding the 1.5oC temperature rise that the Paris agreement sought to keep us under. There will continue to be a global, environmental response to the increasing temperature, but management is key to mitigating its impact on human populations.
The majority of African countries
are often quoted as having a high vulnerability and low adaptability to climate
change. However, I’d argue that many African people have been successfully adapting
to changing environmental conditions for millennia, with incredibly complex
agricultural systems, pastoral and hydrological systems driven by the seasonal
variability in rainfall. The African Climate
Report in 2005 discussed how adaption to existing climate variability would
be hugely useful in adapting to climate change and I agree. With the right
governmental support, funding and guidance, communities across Africa will be
able to build upon their existing adaption capabilities. Hand in hand with
efforts to keep global temperatures from rising as much as possible, this
possibility seems to create hope in the bleak face of climate change.
That’s not to say it’s all
sunshine and rainbows- as evidenced by COP27 governments are often unwilling or
unable to fund the effort needed to adapt to climate change. This increases the
importance of conversations such as we’ve had on this blog and the vital
research done by academics across Africa and further afield. The issue of
environmental change in Africa has to keep being refreshed and discussed to
increase the pressure needed for truly impactful management to occur.
Thank you so much for reading,
Briony
Comments
Post a Comment